• ONLINE SPIN
    User Interface Is More Important Than You Ever Thought It Was
    Two aspiring young entrepreneurs sat across from us. College students, fresh-faced and wide-smiled. They told us about their product, their market research, their monetization strategy, their global ambitions. And then we asked if we could see it. "Well, um, not really," they said. "It's just purely functional at the moment. It doesn't look very good." Ah, we said. Had they given any thought to user interface? "Oh, yeah, sure," they said, nodding enthusiastically. "One of our mentors is from an ad agency. He said he could give us some feedback on how it looks when we're ready to pretty it …
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Mobile Addiction Rules iOK
    I just returned from vacationing in Ogunquit, Maine. It's a beautiful town that I am happy to share with the French Canadians. I would have enjoyed the time here more, except for a truly catastrophic life-changing experience, which pretty much overshadowed the entire vacation. I was running on the beach in the early morning when the worst-case scenario happened -- a fatality of epic proportions. No, not sharks flung onto the beach from a menacing tornado, but something much worse: my iPhone terminally crashed.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    A Pirate Looks At 40
    I don't listen to much Jimmy Buffett these days, but I remember what it was like to sit in the sun when I was 18, 19 and 20 years old without a care in the world -- taking in his music while the hot sun beat down upon my back. There was a sense of comfort in knowing the future was laid out in front of you, rich with possibilities. The world was your oyster, and idealistically, you could make all the decisions that would affect the way things turned out for you. Of course that one particular song is …
  • ONLINE SPIN
    On Failure
    People fail. It can be devastating. However, it's important to remember that people who have never experienced failure most likely haven't taken risks. Their growth is limited. They're not interesting or seasoned.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    If Ad Tech Is Over, What Comes Next?
    The ad industry's high water mark is usually seen as the "Mad Men" era, when the startups of the day were service-based agencies. It's estimated that in the early 1970s over 200 ad agencies were founded annually. The more recent epoch in advertising has been marked by the rise of advertising tech. But that playbook is starting to show its age.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Can The Tech World Beget A Less Bad Form Of Government?
    "Two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner." "The terrible tyranny of the majority." "The worst form of government, except for all the others." A lot has been said about the ills of democracy, but as the last quote (commonly attributed to Winston Churchill) suggests, we are yet to come up with anything better.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Will TV Become Web Video Before Web Video Becomes TV?
    Many in our industry -- me included -- believe that the future of TV will look something like video on the Web, and that the future of online video will look something like TV. However, exactly how those transitions occur will have an enormous impact on who wins, who loses and who ends up with the money.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Bringing Sexy Back To B2B Marketing
    Running marketing for a B2B tech start-up is a unique role. It's equal parts direct response and brand management, but too many B2B marketers focus all their efforts on one or the other.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    What Marketers Need To Know About Facebook #Hashtags
    Facebook has adopted the #hashtag, a form of metadata that provides a means of grouping messages, which can then be searched and aggregated. Most associated with Twitter, hashtags typically comprise a word or phrase prefixed with the # symbol. This is a big deal for Facebook. Hashtags bring Facebook one step closer to becoming a real-time network.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Why Do You Think There Are Makegoods, Anyway?
    I've founded three companies, and at each one I needed to apologize to a customer we had disappointed. Early-stage media and technology companies are especially prone to error, a time when you have more vision than code and a team that is still figuring things out.
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